who?kevin epps, writer, activist and award-winning filmmakerwhat? a semester-long speaker series devoted to literacy in a digital agewhere? maier room, fromm hall, university of san franciscowhen? thursday, april 3 at 6:30 pmprice? free and open to the public

kevin epps is a writer, activist, and award-winning filmmaker. his debut film, straight outta hunters point (2002), about a predominately african-american community in san francisco, has garnered local and national acclaim. epps is also the filmmaker behind rap dreams, released in 2006. in addition to being a passionate community activist who speaks out about social, economic, and environmental issues confronting underserved communities, epps is a member of san francisco's digital media advisory council, made up of leading digital, new media, and technology innovators, organizations, and companies, and also a board member of the SF black film festival. epps is currently working on the black rock which chronicles the experiences of african-american prisoners at alcatraz.

for his davies forum presentation, kevin will screen some of his work, talk about straight outta hunters point and rap dreams, discuss independent and new media, and foster dialogue with students and other attendees.

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

hey, are you a media studies student at USF? if yes, please visit andrew goodwin's blog where he explains how YOU can participate in our departmental review this thursday. please contribute your ideas and insights.

Monday, March 24, 2008

who? kelly quinn, assistant professor, american studies, miami universitywhat? a semester-long speaker series devoted to literacy in a digital agewhere? maier room, fromm hall, university of san franciscowhen? thursday, march 27, at 6:30 pmprice? free and open to the public

as with the rest of the davies forum speakers series, this event is free and open to the public. in preparation for the talk, you are welcome and encouraged to read the following:

Jane Jacobs' "The Uses of Sidewalks: Assimilating Children"; "The Uses of Sidewalks: Safety"; and "The Uses of Sidewalks: Contact" from Death and Life of Great American Cities (Random House, 1961).

kelly's talk will proceed from a few basic points:

the importance of the sidewalk;the importance of slowness;the importance of social intercourse - face to face social intercourse;the importance of hand-crafted, DIY goods.

i seldom give talks about classes that are still in progress but that's what most of my presentation today covered. first, i talked about what my students are doing this semester in digital journalism. next, i talked about what my students are doing in digital literacy. my main idea, i think, was to say that instead of librarians and educators thinking about teaching with technology, we should be thinking about learning with technology. put another way, instead of professors and librarians building sites for students to visit and obey, we should encourage our students to build their own sites - sites where they follow their curiosity, create content, converse, and collaborate (the five c's). i closed my talk by gushing about gleeson gleanings.

i began by discussing my digital journalism students and their tech skills: they blog, they flickr, they comment, they tag. they, like other young people, create lots and lots of content, some of it really good. i presented our growing campus map and clicked through some of the pins. i spent considerable time on one pin, the pin over USF's organic garden.

this year at USF, the garden project - 11 students, 2 profs - has planted an organic farm on campus. last week, i sent out my digital journalism students to cover the garden. today, with the librarians, i focused on one post, miles' USF Organic Garden Project post, which includes excellent writing, photography, and video, but also includes an inaccuracy. i then noted to the librarians how a garden project student, valeria, commented on miles' blog and corrected the mistake. so: a digital journalism student explores and documents the work of garden project students, and then a garden project student reads over and makes more accurate the work of a digital journalism student. very cool: students teaching students. i call that campus crowdsourcing.

i then changed gears and talked about the students and happenings in my digital literacy course. i explained, i think, the davies forum and the uniqueness of the enrolled students. i also explained that the course includes multiple field trips and some stellar guest speakers including ivan chew.

i used this photograph to share with the librarians a long, complex, and wonderful story about ivan's visit with the davies forum and one day i'll try to blog about it in detail. but i also used this photograph to explain how my davies forum students are not only creating content. they are organizing content. they are curating content.

to illustrate what i meant by student-generated content and curation, i showed lulu's Librarians of the Future photo set:

at this point, time was running short and things got blurry, but i seem to recall saying that i ask my students to log off - to go to a lecture, to attend a concert, to walk around and photograph a garden, to make a delicious meal, to physically drag your body away from the computer or cell phone and experience something deeply in first life - and then to blog about it. i said to the librarians that i expect all my students, my digital journalism students and my digital literacy students, to log off before they blog off.

* it's a group blog, collaboratively written by librarians and library staff;* section/topic bloggers seem to be developing organically;* blog posts are diverse in terms of length/depth (this is huge in the long run);* and the best: USF students actually comment on it!

books on shelves vs databases online, authorial credibility vs the wisdom of the crowds, closed journals vs open access, taxonomies vs folksonomies - seems to me that librarians and academics have a lot of concerns and opportunities in common. the more we work together, especially when it comes to curriculum, the smarter and more creative our students become.

there are two instructor positions in film studies (housed within the department of media studies) for fall 2008 at the university of san francisco. if you're qualified, please consider applying. if you know someone who's qualified, please consider passing this along.

[1] Instructor for Experimental Cinema Production

The University of San Francisco's Media Studies Department is currently seeking an instructor to teach Experimental Cinema starting fall 2008. This is a production oriented upper division course that is meant to introduce students to 16mm. filmmaking and experimental techniques related to both film and video production and the fusion of the two. The Experimental Cinema Production course is one of several electives students pursuing a film minor at USF can take. This course is the only 16mm. film course offered in the department. The class is limited to 12 students.

Qualified candidates need to have teaching experience in the area of experimental filmmaking and 16 mm film production, demonstrating proficiency with Bolex cameras, flatbed editing, and hand processing film. M.F.A. preferred, however, candidates with years of filmmaking experience plus teaching experience will also be considered.

Please send letter of interest, resume and example of experimental film syllabus by April 10 to:

Lydia FedulowMedia Studies2130 Fulton StreetSF, CA 94117

[2] Instructor for LGBT Cinema

USF's Media Studies Department is currently seeking an instructor to teach LGBT Cinema starting fall 2008. This course traces Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender film from the pre-Motion Picture Code era to the "New Queer Cinema" of the 1990s and beyond. This course is an elective course for Media Studies majors, Sociology Majors, Film Studies minors, and Gender and Sexuality Studies minors. It is limited to 40 students.

Qualified candidates need to have teaching experience in the area of LGBT Cinema. An M.F.A. or Ph.D. is preferred, however candidates with years of professional experience in the field, plus teaching experience will also be considered.

Please send letter of interest, resume and example of LGBT Cinema syllabus by April 10 to:

Monday, March 10, 2008

who? fred stutzman, Ph.D. student at the university of north carolina's school of information and library science and co-founder and developer of claimIDwhat? a semester-long speaker series devoted to literacy in a digital agewhere? maier hall, fromm hall, university of san franciscowhen? thursday, march 13, at 6:30 pmprice? free and open to the public

drawing on three years of research and analysis, fred will explore the critical issues surrounding social network use - what we do in online social networks, how and why we join them, and what value we get from participating. in addition, fred will look at attitudes towards privacy and disclosure, and explore what social networks of the future might look like. with luck, he'll also talk a bit about claimID.

as with the rest of the davies forum speakers series, this event is free and open to the public. in preparation for the talk, you are welcome and encouraged to read the following:

Thursday, March 06, 2008

for the first few weeks, my digital journalism students and i read about and discussed online journalism and the various ethical issues and technical opportunities that surround it.

during the next few weeks, my students - including austin, brigid, emilia, jacob, laura, and miles - began blogging and flickring, recording various events and spaces across the USF campus.

today we began to map our progress.

if you click on the map above, you will be taken to the "real" map (hosted on laura's blog), where each pin can be clicked to find a blog post, flickr set, or other assorted material related to the geographic section of campus.

* by linking to our individual work through the collective blog, students can easily read each others' blog posts and look at each others' flickr sets and hopefully learn from one another. learning happens in many ways but my favorite is when students learn from students.

* it's nothing new for journalism students to think of campus as their "beat" but google maps' visualization of campus, where every building, every field of grass, every tree can be zoomed in and zoomed out, gives students a whole new perspective of the campus they think they know so well.

* the mapping software we are using, atlas, makes collaboration - between students, between classes - extremely easy. what's preventing the students enrolled in my class from working with other USF journalism classes taught by teresa moore and michael robertson?

* this project is totally scalable. today, near the end of class, the students and i were admiring our creation. then i clicked on the toolbar on the left side and began zooming out - first USF, then haight ashbury, then golden gate park, then san francisco, then the bay area. i let that sink in for a bit and then said something like "once we finish USF, let's make our beat golden gate park. and after that, let's make it the city."

i have high hopes for digital journalism in general and my digital journalism students in particular.

... so we decided to approach first monday about a special issue. they agreed; we worked hard to prepare our papers for publication; and yesterday, on the first monday of the month, first monday published our efforts:

since 1996 (!), first monday has been churning out goodness each month, and it's a delight to be a contributor to this journal. it's also a delight to publish with a free and open-access journal that is online, which, among other things, allowed me to embed a youtube video into my essay.

thanks to michael for organizing us, to my fellow contributors for making the special issue special, and to first monday for doing what they've been doing for over ten years.

Sunday, March 02, 2008

yesterday was my sister cara's birthday and as a present mom offered to stay with w and d while cara and steve spent a weekend in napa valley chillaxing.

so today, with parents out of town, we partied in palo alto! mom, in from santa cruz, provided the mac and cheese, sarah and i drove down from the city, and sister nancy, jeff, a, and b traveled the few blocks from their own home. good times were had.

on the way back home, sarah said that mom said that my sister lisa said that p, one of two new nephews in new york city, said his first word: "cat." apparently he said it twice.

i am an associate professor of environmental studies and urban ag at the university of san francisco. i live in oakland with sarah and our daughter siena. contact me via the email address listed on this page.